


but i still don't understand just how your love can do what no one else can

by deandratb



Series: Maybe In Another Life [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Homecoming Dance, references Alice/Hal and Betty/Jughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 05:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17482064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: After Alice tries to interrogate FP over dinner in "To Riverdale and Back Again," they both think back to the shared secret of how they spent Homecoming night.





	but i still don't understand just how your love can do what no one else can

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snookolive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snookolive/gifts).



> I wrote most of this before "The Midnight Club," so while it's meant to fit into canon, it still contains some traces of my headcanons about their history.
> 
> Inspired by the lyric prompt I used for the title.

While Alice is still clearing the table after dinner, the kids leave for the dance, getting a ride with FP before he vanishes in his truck to wherever a rehabilitated Serpent goes these days.

Not that Alice believes he’s turned over a new leaf--she knows him too well for that. _He’s hiding something._ Hopefully Archie and Veronica will have discovered some clues as to what.

Once they’re alone, Hal tries to talk to her about moving back in, but he couldn’t have picked a worse time. Alice shuts herself in the master bathroom and waits to hear him leave too. He can live in the drafty office of the Register indefinitely for all she cares.

She will never forgive him for what he did to her, and what he tried to do to Polly. FP throwing Homecoming in her face in front of Betty and Jughead just makes it worse.

Alice is sitting on the cold tile floor, shaking, not sure if she wants to scream or cry or drink until the world goes black and she doesn’t have to think at all.

_It would be unseemly for the wife of Hal Cooper to pass out and never make it to the dance, wouldn’t it? And that’s who she is now, who she’s been for so long. Mrs. Harold Cooper. All traces of her past erased, no matter what it cost her._

She may have cut herself out of the public record, she may have removed herself from the criminal element she grew up in, but she hasn’t forgotten any of it.

And while Alice doesn’t really think FP would have finished laying her secrets bare, she can’t be certain. He looked ready to kill tonight, eyes bright and hair slicked back at her dining room table.

It’s important to her that this secret stay buried, not just because it would horrify Betty and make Hal furious, but because it’s theirs. Because unlike Charles, she doesn’t carry this secret alone.

She’s desperately grateful that FP didn’t tell the rest of the story of Homecoming night.

****

“Alice, be reasonable,” FP heard Hal say as he dropped instrument cases on the floor backstage and started to unload them. “You know you can’t just--”

“Don’t you dare try to tell me what I can or can’t do, Harold Cooper,” he heard Alice snap back. “We may be dating, but you have no right.”

“I have every right! This is not just about you. You act like everything is, Alice, but it’s not. Stop being selfish and think about what’s best.”

“I told you I haven’t made a decision yet.” She sounded deflated, with an undercurrent of anger still ready to snap if her boyfriend made one wrong move.

FP recognized that tone. He could picture the matching expression, worry sneaking past his wounded ego. They’d been over for weeks, he didn’t owe her anything--but everybody knew Hal had a temper. What if Cooper pushed too hard?

 _It wasn’t Alice he was worried about,_ FP reassured himself as he slipped out from backstage. It was Hal or the next person to get in her path if Hurricane Alice got going. This was a public service intrusion.

They were squaring off in the hall, Hal’s arms folded over his chest and Alice’s curved across her stomach. Something about that seemed off to FP. Something he would think about later.

“You know what, Hal? You’re right. This isn’t all about me. So it’s even more important that I make the best decision for everyone. Not only me--or you. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Making it all go away. **Your** life staying on track.”

“No, it’s--” Hal looked past her and saw FP, hands in his pockets, leaning against a bank of lockers. “Hey, Jones, this is a private conversation.”

“Then maybe you should be having it in private.” He was looking at Hal, but he felt Alice turn to stare and softened his words for her sake. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. It’s gonna be just fine.” Hal stepped closer to Alice, wrapping an arm around her.

The silent message was clear as day. _Mine. Back off._

FP glared back on principle. The whole damn school was full of jerks and cavemen. He couldn’t help smirking a little when Alice ducked out from under Hal’s arm and put several inches between them.

“You should be onstage, FP,” she told him. Her eyes sent a message even easier to read than Hal’s. _I can handle this._

“She’s right, go play in your band,” Hal added.

His need to have the last word almost pulled FP toward them like a magnet. There would be nothing more satisfying than punching Cooper in that square jaw of his, watching him bleed all over that expensive tuxedo.

But Alice shook her head, just a little, like she knew what he was thinking, and he reminded himself that anything he did would make things harder on her.

“Fine.” FP straightened up, pushing off from the lockers. “But if you don’t want every other student to come out here and see what’s the matter, shut the hell up.”

****

Because the universe had a wicked sense of humor, the happy couple had been crowned Homecoming royalty. The Fred Heads finished their set early, letting Fred and a couple of the other guys dance with their girls while a DJ took over.

FP didn’t have anyone to dance with. Well, no one he **wanted** to dance with. Some of the Southside girls had made their interest known, and a few rebellious Northsiders kept eyeing him and giggling when he looked away.

He only had eyes for Alice, in that floaty dress with her glossy curls twisted up off her neck. Hal probably paid for the hairdo, the same way FP was sure her new boyfriend paid for her soft sweaters and lip gloss.

 _What did she do with her leather and flannel?_ He couldn’t help wondering. Was it tucked away just in case she changed her mind? Or had she thrown it out along with him?

Maybe she paid for her own Homecoming wardrobe, he'd decided, watching as she laughed in Hal’s arms to the tune of “Bette Davis Eyes.” Maybe she did one last job with the Serpents to make the money.

It really wasn’t any of his business either way.

FP shook his head and went back to dismantling the drum kit. Fred could take the gear home when he and Mary left, but since FP had nothing better to do, why not get it started? Half the students were already gone, to empty houses for Homecoming trysts or after parties with alcohol that didn’t have to get smuggled into flasks and punch.

“How **dare** you?”

FP thought he would have heard Alice’s raised voice from a mile away. She’d never been the type to keep her feelings to herself.

Apparently the argument had only paused for the benefit of the Homecoming court, picking up where it left off now that things were slowing down--unfortunately within FP’s earshot again.

He hadn’t wanted to come to the stupid dance at all after how things ended between him and Alice, but he’d promised Fred over the summer. And anything was better than sitting at home with his old man, unable to stop thinking about her.

“You’re not listening to me,” FP heard Hal snap. He ducked his head and went back to packing up their gear. Not his business; not his girlfriend. He’d finish up here, then get the hell out of dodge. Alice was more than capable of handling Hal.

 _She could handle anybody. She’d never needed him for that._  

He couldn’t have said what she did need him for, besides a willing, warm body and a partner in crime. They’d known each other for so long, it was hard to untangle the knot of resentment and need that brought them together, then broke them apart. It was better not to try.

FP carefully closed Fred’s guitar case, listening to heavy footsteps retreat down the hall. He didn’t hear the click of Alice’s heels with them--but he did hear that quiet whimpering sound she made when she was trying not cry.

When she thought no one could hear her.

Really not his business, he lectured himself. Whatever the fight was about, they’d get over it or not. Didn’t matter to him either way.

He set the bass back down when the whimpers turned into deep, wrenching sobs.

_Damn it._

FP hoped like hell nobody would lay sticky fingers on their stuff before Fred came for it, and went to find her.

****

It didn’t take him long. Alice might have been technically hidden away from passersby, tucked into a dusty alcove that most kids didn’t know existed, but he was familiar with all her favorite spots.

He used to find her there when he’d unsuccessfully looked everywhere else; Alice Smith had little good to say about school, but she liked the quiet she couldn’t get at her own house.

The beat up chair some student had managed to move into the tiny space was perfect for reading, she'd told him one morning.

FP had kissed the serious line of her mouth until it softened and she dropped her book.

Now he found her on the concrete floor in her blue dress, mascara running down pale cheeks and her eyes as big as saucers when she spotted him.

“Go away.”

Her skirt was made of that fluffy stuff, he didn’t know what it was called, that matched the theme of the dance. Man, the Homecoming Committee was a bunch of morons.

The color made her eyes even bluer than usual, though. _She looked like a princess._

FP shook his head and stepped closer. “If you wanted to be alone, maybe you should’ve gone to the girls’ room or something. I could hear you from backstage. ”

Alice sniffed back her tears, chest rising and falling with breaths she couldn’t quite control yet. “Doesn’t mean you have to come here like this. I don’t want you here, FP. I don’t want **you**.”

She was staring at her shoes, white heels that sparkled, instead of looking at him. He frowned and stayed put.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“What? Us?” Her laugh was sharp, painful, like there was broken glass in it. “I really don’t.”

“No, not us. It’s your senior Homecoming. Shouldn’t you be dancing instead of hiding in here?”

“Shouldn’t you be tuning your guitar?”

“I was playing drums,” he reminded her. “Fred’s on guitar.” She always turned her nose up at his musical side, and it annoyed him. A lot. _That was probably why she did it._

“Whatever.”

“I was just getting things ready to go, anyway. One of the guys will pack it in. Are you gonna tell me what happened, with Hal? You sounded pissed.”

 _And then heartbroken,_ he thought. She hated pity, so he didn’t mention that part.

“It was a fight. Couples fight.” FP assumed she was trying for defensive, but her tone landed somewhere between dejection and fear.

It would have been simpler if he’d stopped caring the moment they stopped talking, but life didn’t work that way. At least not for him. He couldn’t help feeling bad for Alice, the tear-streaked Homecoming Queen hugging her knees to her chest, too upset to put real effort into scaring him off.

“This place is hell,” she added.

“You don’t mean that.” FP reached down to tap her plastic tiara. “You’re queen of the night.”

“No, I was queen of the night with you. I was way better at being a Serpent than I’ll ever be anything in Hal’s world.”

He stepped back. He didn’t necessarily disagree with her--it was still jarring to see her glitter next to that preppy asshole--and yet there she was.

“What are you doin’ with him, Al?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to fight with you too, FP. I can’t.”

On a normal day, Alice would have sliced him clean through with her words until he gave up. She could be so prickly and guarded, the flipside of how fearless and free she had been in his arms.

But sometimes with Alice, a halfhearted protest was the same as a plea for help. It was the most weakness she was willing to show.

He understood that.

So FP didn’t leave. He stepped past her and settled in her reading chair.

“Tell me a story, Alice Smith. Tell me how a princess ended up crying alone on the night of her coronation.”

****

 _It shouldn’t be FP asking,_ she thought as he waited. It should be Hal. But her boyfriend had stormed off, and she wasn’t eager to see him again. Especially not like this, splotchy and ugly-crying and probably staining the most expensive article of clothing she’d ever bought in her life.

Hal would make that face, and say what he always said, about what people would think. He’d be disappointed, disgusted. He wouldn’t sit just out of eyesight and ask her to spill her secrets.

Alice couldn’t tell FP what the fight was about, of course. It had been hard enough telling Hal she was pregnant, even after he’d promised her a future and she knew she was running out of time. It hurt to pretend the baby was his and see doubts cross his face. But not nearly as much as the way he offered to help “fix her problem.”

It was her own fault for being such an idiot. Sleeping with FP, when she didn’t matter to him. Then placing her bet on the easygoing boy with the bright future, so desperate not to make her baby a bastard too. Being left alone and miserable was the least she deserved, wasn’t it?

 _God, she hated this town,_ Alice thought as she tried to swipe the mascara stains off her cheeks. All she’d ever wanted was to get out. School was boring, the other kids were annoying. Being a Serpent had its moments, but it was all she’d ever known. She wanted more.

It was supposed to be Hal, with all his promises and how gentle he was, treating her like she was delicate. She’d done things with the Serpents that she knew he couldn’t even imagine, but it was kind of nice, being seen as soft and sweet and fragile. A comforting fiction.

Now, with the baby growing inside her, she wasn’t sure about anything anymore. She’d expected Hal to be happy. Surprised, sure, but supportive. He had been talking so much about their future, about marriage and kids and what that would look like...so they got started early, so what?

Instead, he was furious. Cruel. Callous.

If Hal didn’t want the baby, Alice couldn’t exactly blame him for that, but it wasn’t a problem to be solved. It was a person she helped make, who would be beautiful.

 _Even though it was FP’s,_ she thought. _Especially because it was FP’s._ After all, he was here. He saw her in hiding, a sobbing mess, and he was still here.

Forsythe Jones was a lot of things, but he had always been kind.

And she did want to tell him something. She felt like she was drowning, alone with it all. So Alice shifted until her shoulder was resting up against his knee, and exhaled.

“Once upon a time,” she began, hearing his chuckle behind her, “there was a girl who lived in the gutter. Her life was not full of riches, or of love. But she grew up tough and proud. One day she met a boy, a beautiful boy with sad eyes, and in him she saw a reflection of her pain. He couldn’t offer her money or status, but she didn’t care, because she finally knew what it was to find a home in someone else.

“That boy met her in secret, striving to be more than his humble roots. They had passion that burned as bright as the sun. And she was happy, for a while. But something was still missing, something she craved that she didn’t see in his eyes. One day she was courted by a prince from another kingdom, a place of gleaming wealth, where everyone seemed happy and safe. He said that he loved her, and would give her all she desired, if only she left her world behind.

“Though it felt like ripping out her own heart, the girl was so sick of being unhappy, scared, and tired that she saw no other choice. Abandoning everything she loved, she hoped in her absence the boy would find joy of his own.”

“That’s crap,” FP snapped, unable to hold his tongue any longer.

Alice brushed her fingers over his ankle. “You asked for my story. Let me finish.”

His hand reached down to tangle in her hair. She closed her eyes.

“The prince was not what she expected, but he did give her a new world. A new life. She tried to be the princess he wanted. Their coronation ball was the finest dance she had ever attended, and she was so excited. Then, as she put on her dress, she realized it was time to…”

Alice wasn’t sure how to continue. Any lie, FP would see right through. The truth was impossible.

“Tell him something?”

She sighed. Of course he would make it easier on her. “Yes. Something she wasn’t ready to face. But summoning all the strength the gutter gave her, she told him. And his reaction was worse than her deepest fears. He yelled, he tried to control her, he made her feel small and wrong and alone.

“She cried until she could barely breathe, and she ran like Cinderella after midnight. Unlike Cinderella, her prince didn’t follow. He didn’t search for her at all. It was her lover who found her instead, the girl from the gutter wearing a fantasy of a dress. Stupid enough to think it could make her one of them.”

“So stupid,” Alice added in a whisper. She opened her eyes when she felt FP move away, watching as he lowered himself to the floor at her side.

“Stupid, maybe,” he told her. “But brave, too. The bravest he’d ever known. She may have broken his heart when she left, but it never stopped beating for her.”

The tears started falling again, but this time she let them, past caring about her makeup or what people might say.

“FP...”

“You don’t have to say anything. That’s how my story ends, and I thought you should know. I figured out how I felt way too late--you were already gone. But nobody will ever light me up like you. And with or without me, you deserve better than someone who makes you feel small.”

He trailed a finger down the curve of her cheek, through the sheen of saltwater. “Get your happily ever after, Alice. Don’t settle for anything less. Never forget you were a queen long before they gave you a crown.”

Tomorrow she would decide what to do about keeping the baby. About keeping Hal. Whoever this baby would grow up to be, they were definitely her kid, because they’d already managed to make a mess of everything and they weren’t even born.

Tonight, she was an abandoned Homecoming Queen, and the first boy she’d ever loved was drinking her in with those warm eyes like he might never see her again. FP always looked at her that way, as though she was a quiet revelation.

She hadn’t realized how much she would miss him, when she left. She thought she’d be too busy moving on to care. It crashed over her in that moment, and Alice was drowning for the second time.

She leaned in, taking his face in both her hands before she kissed him. Until their lips brushed, it felt like some crazy dream they would both wake up from--but the contact brought him back down to Earth. FP jerked away.

“Alice, you don’t--you’re upset.”

“So?”

“Tomorrow you’ll still be with him, and you’ll hate me for taking advantage.” He shook his head. “We can’t.”

“I may be having the worst night of my life, FP Jones, but you really think anyone could take advantage of me? You should know better than that.”

Alice traced his bottom lip with her tongue, smiling when he reached for her. FP’s hands gripped her hips and dug in.

“I’ve missed this, Al. Damn it, I’ve missed **you.** ”

She froze. The feelings she used to believe FP didn’t have for her would bruise him later if she wasn’t careful here. “This doesn’t mean we’re getting back together,” she said in a rush. “This…”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” he agreed softly. “It’s just tonight. Don’t worry.”

Alice almost laughed. She had so much more to worry about now, he had no idea. But she’d always been safe with FP. They made their own oasis wherever they went, and at the moment that was behind some stairs while the Homecoming DJ wound down his playlist.

Right then, the whole world was his mouth drawing out her sighs and their hands mapping all the places they used to love.

****

Contrary to tradition, it wasn’t Hal she went home with on Homecoming night. Her future husband spent his night at Sweetwater River, listening to the rush of the water and thinking about becoming a father before graduation.

When he called her the next day and she met him at Pop’s, he was calmer. So collected, so goddamn **reasonable** it set Alice’s nerves on edge.

“Of course I want you to be the mother of my children,” Hal promised. “But do you really want to start so soon? Not even getting a honeymoon, some time to be a married couple before the baby comes? Do you want to walk around town, knowing how everyone would talk and how they’ll treat it?”

That was what did the trick. As soon as Hal saw the guilt cross her face, he pressed the point. “Think about that child, Alice,” he pleaded with her. “What kind of life could it have, with an unwed mother still in her teens? How hard would it be, to carry that shame around for all of its life?”

Hal didn’t get his way, in the end. Alice clenched her jaw and told him in no uncertain terms that she would not wish this baby out of existence.

She didn’t tell him that it was partly because she and FP were finally, truly over, and a baby made from both of them was something she couldn’t let go of.

She also neglected to mention that she didn’t go home after the dance. Or that Serpent connections meant she and FP didn’t need to do anything so cliche as rent a room. A motel appearance might’ve become gossip, but Serpents didn’t snitch. So FP took her to a friend’s house, and she spent her night saying goodbye.

It was the goodbye they didn’t get before, when the Midnight Club destroyed everything. And it felt almost like the first time again: desperate kisses and her legs wrapped around his hips, so different from the way she was with Hal.

 _If only a future could be built on this,_ Alice thought, while FP ran his hands down her bare back in the afterglow, _then her choice would never have been a question._ At this, they were perfect. She always felt loved in his arms. It was everything else, the fighting and the secrets and his talk about out-of-state college, as though he could leave her so easily.

Like she didn’t even matter.

She wasn’t sure if Hal loved her, in the consuming passionate way that FP did. She didn’t love Hal that way. Maybe it was greedy to hope for it with two people.

She knew Hal wanted her, though. He was proud to have her on his arm. And with Hal, Alice knew where she fit. His pride and ambition and loyalty to his heritage would always come first. She had enough pride and ambition to appreciate that, and no heritage at all, except what she wanted to escape. She would have a safe life with Hal Cooper.

But until the sun came up, the future could wait. Every time FP’s lips or hands brushed across her belly, she thought, _That’s your father, little one. In case you never get to know him, he makes up half of you. The impulsive, protective, passionate half._

All of those words fit her as well as FP, though, didn’t they? No wonder this was all they could have. They’d always been too much alike.

Alice and Hal were fire and ice, with him expecting her to cool off any time they disagreed.

She and FP were nothing but flames, licking around the edges of anything good, looking for a way to burn it down.

She had to get out of the Southside, give herself the possibility of being better than that. To stop ruining her own chances. And she needed to give her baby the best life she could, which meant letting go.

It took all the strength she had not to tell FP that night, as they fell asleep tangled up together and everything was warm and safe and soft.

****

She would leave for the Sisters that evening, before there was time for rumors of their fight to spread. That way nobody could realize how far along she was and do the math.

“This is the plan,” she told Hal at Pop’s, her fingernails digging into her palms as he took it in. “No negotiations.” If he couldn’t accept it, then she never wanted to see him again.

“It sounds like what will be best for everyone,” Hal assured her carefully. “Of course I’ll support you. Give you a ride, make sure you have whatever you need. Just say the word, Alice.”

“After all, that’s my baby too,” he added, and the way his words tilted up at the end sealed the fate of the child she carried. He wasn’t sure; he would never fully believe the baby could be his.

He was not as dumb as he looked.

Hal wanted her, and their life together. He didn’t want her baby. _She would be a terrible mother anyway,_ Alice told herself as Hal smiled at her across the table at Pop’s. The kind of girl who slept with her ex after being someone else’s Homecoming date. The kind of girl who could love a boy who didn’t want her, and lie to the one who did.

She was lucky. Hal would whisk her away, from rags to riches, just like she wanted. And FP was a lot of things, but never cruel--so she knew he wouldn’t tell anyone what happened between them.

And someday, when she held her baby in her arms and stared down at his tiny, perfect face, she wouldn’t be able to see his father there at all.

 _Charles didn’t look like FP,_ Alice remembers, walking up the stairs of the school as her daughter gets out of FP’s truck. _He didn’t have FP’s deep eyes or dark hair. He just looked like her._

She was so young then...barely older than Betty. She'd closed her eyes as the nuns took him away and prayed to God that her little boy would find his way to a better home than she had.

****

 _It’s only a matter of time,_ FP thinks as he drives away from the school. Things are unraveling. He can’t expect to escape the consequences, but he doesn’t know what to do other than try.

Alice Cooper’s life is like the Twilight Zone, in comparison to the hell he’s living in.

He lifts his right shoulder, lowering it irritably when that can’t rid him of the lingering sensation. She rested a hand there when she gave him his plate. A casual, friendly gesture--startling in its simplicity.

Or it would’ve been, if she hadn’t let her hand linger a little too long, brushing close to his neck as she drew it away.

FP knows that if the kids were paying attention, all they’d have seen was Alice using him to steady herself next to the dining room table. Nothing unusual, as she smiled like a shark scenting blood and encouraged them to dig in.

This was really the life she’d wanted? This...Norman Rockwell poster of fake perfection?

Alice Smith had been a force to be reckoned with, only describable with words usually reserved for natural disasters. Fierce, relentless, life-changing.

Alice Cooper bakes pie.

It was as if she’d packed away all the parts of herself that she hated--coincidentally, most of the things he loved--and thrown away the key.

Every venomous glance and sharp tone over dinner was a reminder of what he lost, but FP prefers it to her carefully curated performance the rest of the time. He misses **his** Alice.

He wonders how much pressure it would take to crack through the glass wall between her and the world.

Maybe if he had more time, he’d try to find out. But the Sheriff and the Blossoms are breathing down his neck, he can feel it. Even Alice is watching him a little too closely, though he never knows with her--professional curiosity or personal interest?

She was in reporter mode over dinner, trying to mount a one-woman investigation into his activities and his past. Funny thing there is, she already knows his past. She **is** his past.

And a lot of her questions, circling around the point, struck him as more personal than journalistic. _If she wanted to know what he’s been up to all these years,_ FP thinks, _she could have taken the short drive across town anytime and asked._ It’s a bit late now to act like she cared. Like she ever wondered, the way he did about her.

It took him years to put the pieces together. When she disappeared for half the school year and everybody knew she was out sick but everyone seemed to have heard a different story, he wondered. But he kept his nose out of it since she wasn’t his anymore.

When she came back to school dressed like Hal Cooper’s perfect match, with a kind of blankness behind her eyes, he thought maybe it was drugs. Maybe she’d finally gone crazy like her mother, and she’d been turned into a zombie by the medication.

It was a shame to see her looking half-dead inside. So broken. He passed Alice in the halls and she didn’t even make eye contact--not like she was avoiding him, more like she didn’t realize he was there. Or that she was.

After graduation, Alice married Hal in a small ceremony FP was not invited to. He got so drunk that night that Tall Boy and a couple other Serpents had to carry him home and dump him on the porch of his trailer.

Squinting up at the glare of the rising sun, certain he would start throwing up any minute, FP finally figured it out.

The argument he overheard. The way she looked like she had given up a part of herself and would never recover from the loss. Most of all, the length of time she was gone from school: exactly the amount of time it would take a girl to go from developing a bump that the whole school could see to giving birth to a baby...or losing one.

 _Hal got her pregnant,_ FP thought as the newlyweds began their honeymoon. Either she gave the baby up, or something went wrong.

The specifics didn’t really matter, so many years later. Still not his business. _Still not his girl._

But the way she became more fragile as a Cooper than even bastard-born Alice Smith once was, the way she lashed out at the slightest provocation--FP was certain by now that his theory was on target.

And if he’d had any doubt, her reaction over dinner confirmed it for him. The way she froze and paled when he brought up the argument, the way her hands stopped trembling as soon as he lied his way out of telling the kids what he knew.

She remembered that argument, and she wished she didn’t--and even more than that, she wished he didn’t have it as leverage. Alice was afraid of what that information could mean to FP, how he could use it.

He would only use it if he had to, to protect his son and their fragile attempt at rebuilding their relationship, but she didn’t need to know that. She should know him better than that anyway, but they were different people now.

Alice decided that for both of them, when she married Hal Cooper and moved to his side of town and had his children. She made her choice, before FP realized there was even a choice to be made.

 _He’d been slower than his son not just in book-learning, back in those days,_ he can’t help but think as his truck rattles over the train tracks that separate his home from the likes of Alice Cooper.

He loved her. He loved her before she ever went out with Hal, but how was he supposed to know that? Until Hermione asked him, FP hadn’t even bothered to think about his feelings. Or his situation. He just liked girls, and they liked him.

He was young and stupid and didn’t know how to tell Alice that he wanted more than sex.

He didn’t even know he did, until he woke up the morning after Homecoming to an otherwise empty bed.

Alice had never been much for sentimentality, giggling at Hal in the halls in a way that sickened him because FP had known her for years on the Southside, long before they’d ever hooked up, he just plain **knew** her--and everything she had with Hal was clearly fake.

It never would’ve occurred to him to bring her flowers or slide affectionate touches into their frantic makeout sessions or give her poetic words. He’s certain she would have laughed in his face if he had.

So Alice Smith didn’t do anything as fanciful as leaving him a Cinderella shoe, a token of one last night before she disappeared from his life forever. She didn’t even leave him a note. He would have gratefully accepted a simple goodbye, he was that parched for her since she’d become someone else.

But as an adult, FP could look back now and understand that he only saw part of the picture. The ferocious, broken girl he loved was never as tough as she claimed, and she proved it that final night with him.

He woke up in their borrowed bed, cold sunlight making him squint as he reached out for Alice and found nothing but icy sheets. Once his vision cleared, he realized she was gone, along with all her formalwear and the little purse she’d been carrying when they fumbled their way through the door.

 _Why did girls always carry those things?_ FP wondered as he hunted around for his boxers and then shrugged his slacks and jacket back on. He didn’t bother with the tie, crumpling it into his pocket as he glanced around. She had been meticulous in leaving no trace, which was smart and cut right through him in equal measure.

No proof they were here meant no ammunition against either of them, should it come up. Her new reputation could remain unsullied, and he didn’t have to fear that the Homecoming Queen might be used as his weak spot in negotiations with rival gangs.

 _That was a benefit of their past being so secret,_ he thought as he headed to double check the master suite’s bathroom. _It protected her from association with him._ Not that she needed it, but FP didn’t need any soft spots to worry about. Especially ones outside his reach these days.

His father was a reckless leader, encouraging intergang rivalries to curry his favor, allowing for all kinds of schemes that made things worse. That was probably why FP felt the need to be extra careful. No way Alice would’ve left any of her things in the small bathroom, if she’d even used it on her way out...but he had to be sure.

Flipping on the light and scanning the dimly white space took moments; it was his reflection in the mirror that forced FP to pause.

His open collar, haphazardly buttoned shirt and bleary eyes gave him a rakish look--fittingly like a guy who spent the night getting some. Who was just sober enough for an after party.

But the effect was ruined by the precise, perfect imprint of deep pink lipstick on his forehead. It was slightly off center and a little tilted, making it easy to imagine Alice leaning over him to leave it there for him to wake to.

It didn’t surprise FP that he’d slept through it; she had worn him out, and he slept like the dead. But he was stunned by it nonetheless, by the evidence of the night they’d had.

Without her mark on him, it had already begun to fade in the silent morning light, a vivid dream of a girl he never seemed to be able to get out of his head. Something FP would start to doubt in a month, something he’d think he imagined by next year.

But it was there. A glossy, shimmering brand, reminding him that Alice may not have chosen him as her Homecoming date or to be hers after that, but she chose him that night. It was real.

And considering how thoroughly her makeup had been smudged off by his kisses crushing her close and her mouth exploring him everywhere...she had to put her lipstick back on to brand him that way. _Must have been carrying it in that little pink purse._

She woke up that morning, pulled herself together, and left that mark deliberately.

_Only Alice would finally claim him and also make it a goodbye._

****

He’d told himself he was over it. Before Jason Blossom, before his son broke his heart open with the hope he still carried, FP did his best to avoid that neighborhood where he used to jam with Fred Andrews, where he knew Alice had moved in with her kids and was probably living the life he thought he would have someday--a college degree, a settled family, a respectable life.

But seeing her outside Jug’s birthday party proved to him just how wrong he was.

He isn’t over Alice. He’ll never be over her, even if now she’s tied to Hal Cooper--even if, or especially if, she’s throwing bricks at the man in public and rolling her eyes whenever he speaks.

FP understands being married on paper but losing all hope for a future; Gladys stopped returning his phone calls after the third drunk dial, and honestly he can’t blame her.

The worst of it is that up close, Alice Cooper is even hotter than he remembered her being in his hazy teenage memories. Snarling and sneering and acidic words are still her forte, calling back to days of brass knuckles and switchblades and punching walls when somebody pissed her off.

But she is so controlled now. So tightly wound, he wants to see how much further he can wind her up. He wants to be the one to watch her let go. Something about the twinsets and manicures and the way she measures every word, crisply and cleanly as though she were playing a role in a movie...it makes his mouth go dry.

It gives him all kinds of ideas that he refuses to entertain with blood still pooling on the ground in his nightmares and her instincts breathing down his neck.

He can’t shake the memory, though, as he steps into his trailer in clean dinner clothes. History he brought up by accident when he’d just meant to shake Alice off her lofty perch.

 _I know you,_ he told her silently with a stare as she twined begging with intimidation and waited to see if he would bare her to her daughter. _You should be more careful, Alice, because I’m not the only one at this table with secrets, and I know yours._

He’d been aiming for the pregnancy that she had managed to keep from the whole town, minus her husband. And he hit his mark, absolutely.

_Dead-eye._

But he’d wanted one casualty and got two, because he pulled up his own memories of that night along with the one that was most dangerous for her. It was impossible for him to separate any of it: going stag to Homecoming and watching her with Hal...playing with Fred and hoping for an early escape...finding a devastated Alice and rekindling things just long enough for it to hurt.

Just long enough for it to confirm what he’d feared all the way back when they started playing G&G.

She was his first love, the one he would never be able to shake.

And that might have been it, a sad tale from his past that helped make up who he is. A woman he crosses paths with in town sometimes, who lifts the same eyebrow that used to silently convey ‘Fuck me’ and now says ‘Fuck you’ and it feels like she really means both. But he might be projecting there. _Who the hell knows._

Alice could just be his ex, a fling that was barely even anything, who haunts him in ways he’ll never admit to another living soul.

But now he’s a father, watching his own son fall for the pretty Cooper girl with rebellious blue eyes, and he can’t avoid the truth. He loved Alice the night of Homecoming, and he loves her still, and she’s ready to send him to prison or to hell, if the daggers she throws with her eyes are any hint.

Alice is well over him. That much is clear.

As he pours himself a drink, FP thinks that he would try to get over her too, if he knew how she did it. It hurts so damn much, of course he’d rather be free. _Maybe someday he should ask,_ he thinks with a humorless chuckle.

_Maybe if he asks real nice, she’ll tell him her secret._

He downs the whiskey, memories of taffeta and home cooked dinner and pinning Alice up against that bedroom wall and making her scream his name all bleeding together in his head.

Police lights outside his trailer pull him back to the present, and Tom Keller digs a gun FP’s never seen before out of his closet.

Then Alice’s unspoken wish comes true, and FP finds himself in prison and hell all at once.

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Crazy In Love" by Beyonce.


End file.
